White Horse
by GiraffeGirl
Summary: John Bender can't even rescue himself; why would anyone else expect him to rescue them? Sequel/prequel to Because of You. Language in line with that used in the film. Perhaps some darker themes than my previous story.
1. Friday, August 26th 1983

**I've been working on this off and on pretty much since I finished writing Because of You. This takes a slightly different look at what happens between John and Madison (and others) from late 1983 to mid-1984. It is perhaps slightly darker than Because of You but is no worse off because of that in my mind. It felt like this story needed telling. It can be read on its own, although I would recommend reading Because of You first as you may get more of an understanding of the characters involved.**

**I, of course, own nobody except my original characters (who are the majority of characters for at least the first 6 chapters)**

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_Friday, August 26__th__ 1983_

It was late and yet nobody was moving. The hilarity and chatter of the evening had long since died away and now the only noises were the crackly tape somebody had put on at some point and the muffled giggles and sighing of those who had coupled off. It could make somebody jealous, John Bender mused as he took a long drag on his cigarette. Jealous or sickened.

If he had hoped that coming to Diego's house tonight would take his mind off of the scene he'd left behind at home that day, he'd have been disappointed. As it was, he'd learnt over the last few years that no amount of alcohol, nicotine or pot would change the fact that his old man was a grade-A asshole and his mom was a cowardly bitch who deflected his blows onto her own son. At fifteen, John might have moaned and complained. At almost eighteen, he'd dealt with it.

Having friends like Diego sort of helped. That is, if Diego was really a friend, which John still doubted. Friends were surely supposed to know things about each other; all he really knew about Diego was that he scored some seriously mind-blowing marijuana. In truth, he wasn't even really sure what the Puerto Rican guy did for a living, nor how he afforded the house that the ever-changing bunch of misfits flocked to on an almost-nightly basis. As for Diego, he knew John was in high school and that was where the questions had stopped. He certainly knew nothing about the Bender household, and John intended it to stay that way. Life was so much easier when people didn't know.

Still, being silent and alone at gone midnight wasn't exactly how he'd envisaged the evening going. If there was one thing John Bender had learnt by seventeen, it was that when drink and drugs failed to block out life in general, a hot girl could distract him for a bit. It wasn't that he'd come to Diego's this evening purely to get laid, but it would have been something.

Instead, he now eased himself off of the sagging couch and threaded his way through the entwined bodies to the kitchen. He helped himself to a beer out of the fridge and popped the lid. He'd only just got it to his mouth when he was interrupted.

'Any left?'

In a move he'd perfected over the past couple of years, he didn't move the bottle, feigning disinterest as he allowed his eyes to roam over to the source of the interruption. The beer was likely colouring his judgment a little: this was his seventh bottle of the evening. Even so, his first thought was that the intruder had good legs. _Great _legs, actually, and she was kind enough to share them with the general public in a pair of miniscule denim shorts. The off-the-shoulder top was a little overkill in terms of flesh on display, but the pouting red lips and mass of brown hair lent her a dishevelled sexiness which didn't seem out of place at one of Diego's parties. She was hot, and that gave her a certain access level into John's life.

Still, it never did any good to appear too keen. He swallowed his mouthful of beer slowly before replying. 'Last one. Sorry.' As lies went, it was pretty pointless, but telling the truth wasn't something that came that easily to him anymore. The way she looked at him suggested she knew that and was just deliberating over her next move. He was happy to give her the time to think: she was mildly entertaining.

'Pretty rude of you, to just help yourself to the last one without asking, don't you think?' she said eventually, coming further into the kitchen, her hip-swaying walk only serving to emphasise those legs further.

'Who was I gonna ask?' John gestured around the empty kitchen. If the sign of a good party was everybody congregating in the kitchen, this was surely a sign that the party was over. In truth, he was surprised anybody else was still prowling around the house, especially somebody who looked like this girl; she should have had no trouble taking her mind off of life tonight.

'It's Diego's house.' She raised her eyebrows challengingly, even as her red mouth stretched into a teasing smile, standing almost toe to toe with him despite the space around her.

'I think Diego's pretty tied up at the moment,' was John's response. He was speaking metaphorically but for all he knew, it could be literal; Diego was a kinky bastard.

The humour wasn't lost on her, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief. She seemed to know Diego at least as well as John did, perhaps more. John let his eyes drop down her body again. Yes, almost certainly more. He couldn't remember seeing her here before, but that wasn't wholly surprising: Diego's guest list was vast and fluid, the same group of people hardly ever mingling in their entirety again. John's attendance at these gatherings was sporadic, and besides, a girl like this would likely have found herself kept well-occupied whenever she was present. It only made it seem stranger that she was here tonight. And there was a nagging feeling that he had seen her somewhere before, somewhere an impossibly long way from this moment.

'So what am I supposed to do if I get thirsty?' Her voice was more like a purr than actual words, John thought, his mouth creasing into a smile again at the performance she was putting on, presumably for his benefit. It was working. The girl certainly knew what she was doing.

Still, there was no harm in playing her at her own game. 'That,' he took a long swig of his own beer before continuing, 'is not really my problem.'

There was a moment when it seemed her reaction could go one of two ways, and John looked into her eyes with a certain amount of alarm: man, she looked young. Then they creased into laughter and his next thought was wondering how even a laugh could sound quite so sexy.

'You're John Bender, right?'

It was no surprise to him that his reputation might go before him, but even he wasn't quite vain enough to believe that his fame had spread to Chicago at large. 'You go to Shermer?'

She nodded. 'I've heard all about you.'

From adults, John usually found that particular comment was imbued with a sense of weariness and irritation that they'd been landed with him in their class for that semester. Strangely, when the words fell from girls' lips, it usually signalled that they wanted to be part of the next story. This girl would make a pretty good tale, actually.

'Yet I've heard nothing about you.'

She tilted her chin up suddenly, sensing her advantage. A self-satisfied smile spread across her face, like a cat basking in sunshine. 'It'll cost you a beer.'

He was unable to maintain his cool in the face of such brazen blackmail. Laughing, he held the bottle out to her, figuring she'd earned it. The way she wrapped her lips around the bottle silenced his laughter and caused him to momentarily have a problem with catching his breath.

'So,' he said at length as she looked triumphantly back at him. He slipped his hands into his jeans' pockets, trying to behave nonchalantly when the truth was that she'd wrong-footed him from the moment she'd sashayed into the kitchen. 'What's your name?'

There was a pause before she replied, as though she was enjoying keeping him in suspense. Her mouth stretched into a smile, and that feeling crept over him again: _she's young_. 'Nancy Kennedy.' Then the feeling was gone and a very different one took its place.

Leaning in towards her, he could smell the beer on her breath as he pulled the bottle from her hand. There was a mock-pout on her lips but he couldn't help notice she didn't protest as he took her hard-won beer from her. Her eyes sparkled again, the pupils almost undetectable against the dark brown irises. She was hot by any standards, especially gone midnight on a depressing Friday. He'd feel no regret at what he was about to do.

'You wanna get out of here, Nancy Kennedy?'

* * *

August in Chicago was often unpleasantly hot and sticky, especially in places like Diego's that had no air-conditioning. John sometimes wondered whether Chicago had been specially selected as one of God's experiments, with summers that scorched and winters that burned cold. Certainly it made having two wardrobes necessary.

However, he had always been grateful for the mild summer nights the climate afforded. For somebody who hated going home as much as he did, being able to be outside and not cold was a blessing. It was something he'd become increasingly grateful for as he'd gotten older and occasions like this had become more frequent. Not having to take Nancy Kennedy home with him was a massive bonus.

Now, as he zipped his jeans up and she wiggled back into her shorts, his earlier assertion that he'd feel no regrets about doing this faded a little. It was how it always went on evenings like this: him, a girl, a hook-up, and then the crushing realisation that he probably shouldn't have done that. That Nancy wasn't crying was a sign that things had gone better than they had on previous occasions, but from the little he actually knew and understood about girls, no visible tears didn't mean that they weren't harbouring some secret hurt to bring up in the future. It was the story of John Bender's life that an attempt to make himself feel better had resulted in his actually feeling worse. Needing to do something whilst she straightened her clothes, he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one, taking a long drag as he hoped he could disentangle himself from this situation.

'Is that the last one too?' In the gloom, he couldn't see her face, but something told him that that teasing smile was back on it. This he could only take as a good sign.

Without replying, he lit a second cigarette and handed it to her. Her face was briefly illuminated in the glow from the end as she too inhaled and for a moment he saw a hollowness in her cheeks and eyes, as though whatever made her Nancy had gone. Then she gave an awkward giggle and he pretended he'd imagined it.

'So,' she said after a pause, and he was heartened to hear no trace of a wobble in a voice, nothing but the honeyed-tones which had got them into this situation in the first place. 'I guess I can forgive you for taking the last beer now.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah.' Then, 'Anyway, it's late. I should be getting home.'

That was normally John's line and it took him a moment to fashion up any kind of response. 'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah.' She sounded a little impatient with his sluggish responses. The end of her cigarette flickered as she took several long pulls on it before stubbing it out. John had never seen Diego's backyard in daylight but he imagined cigarette ends were more prominent than any flowers. 'You can walk me home if you like.'

It was the sort of offer no sane girl would ever make, certainly not one who had heard of John Bender. Nancy spoke so casually and confidently, as though it was obvious that he'd want to, that for a moment he was unable to think of an argument against it. He didn't do walking girls home. He didn't do dates or relationships. God, he had never even hooked up with the same girl twice. He'd seen what that sort of commitment did, tying people down and together. It was the last thing he wanted for his life.

He'd clearly paused too long, as Nancy gave a small snort. 'Okay. I'll take that as a no.'

'I didn't say…' Why was he protesting? His silence had said everything it needed to without him opening his mouth. They could part on reasonable terms and there'd be one less chick he needed to avoid around here. Nancy Kennedy might just become his perfect hook-up.

'Honey, you didn't need to.' Suddenly business-like, she planted a firm kiss on his lips and he heard her flip-flops slapping the pathway as she walked away from him. 'I'll see you around.'


	2. Tuesday, September 13th 1983

**Thanks for the reviews and follows so far. Brief cameo from an old favourite today. This is a bit of a scene setting chapter as opposed to anything more dynamic.**

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A guilty grin spread across John's face as he entered into the school office and Mrs McKenzie raised her eyebrows at him.

'This must be a new record, Mr Bender. Only the second week of school and already tardy.' She pulled out a late slip from her drawer. 'And what shall we say is the excuse this time?'

John leaned companionably over the desk. 'Dog ate my homework?'

'That would involve you having done the homework in the first place.' The secretary uncapped her pen and began filling in the slip with the sort of efficiency which smacked of years' worth of practice. John noticed she didn't even need to check which homeroom he was in any more, such was his high number of tardies in the past three years at Shermer High. So far, senior year seemed to be going much the same way as the others.

Time to turn on the charm. 'Mrs McKenzie. Barbara – can I call you Barbara?' He didn't wait for a response – when embarking on a charm offensive, it was best not to allow the victim a chance to reply. 'Barbara, is it at all possible that that tardy slip could perhaps be… lost? Misplaced?'

Mrs McKenzie raised her eyebrows again. Then she turned back to the slip. 'I'll write down you slept through your alarm. I'm sure you know your way to detention by now? Three o'clock sharp.'

John pocketed the slip of paper with a nod in her direction and tried to muster up some shame for having landed himself in this situation yet again. He'd been back at school for less than a week and whilst it may not have been obvious to anybody else, he had half-decided, half-hoped that maybe this year would be better. He should feel disappointed in himself. Yet all he could think was that a detention at least gave him somewhere to go this afternoon which wasn't home.

As he walked down the hallway to his second period history class, he partially wished he had told Mrs McKenzie the truth about his late arrival this morning. It was the sort of move he never made and he wondered what her reaction would have been to a casual mention of how his father had gotten drunk the night before and the fight he had had with John's mother had made sleep an impossibility until gone three in the morning. In terms of the Bender household, it was a mild night in, but for somebody like Mrs McKenzie, it would likely be an eye-opener. John imagined that Mrs McKenzie's life was a bed of roses, otherwise there was no way she'd care as much about the odd child's tardiness.

Reaching the classroom door, he set aside those thoughts. He'd learnt long ago that if he was to maintain the front he'd found worked for him, he couldn't bring any thoughts of home with him into school. Time to be the John Bender everybody knew. Pushing the door so hard it ricocheted off of the wall, he entered the room.

Everybody's heads jerked up at the rude interruption to Mrs Dunstan's explanation of the Boer War. Some people looked as though it had been more of an interruption to their sleep than to anything else, and John wondered why being tardy was frowned upon so much more than actually dozing off in classes: surely it all amounted to the same lack of knowledge? Whatever, he felt a small kick of pleasure as everybody's eyes landed on him, albeit with mixed reactions ranging from irritation to mild amusement. At least they were paying him attention.

Mrs Dunstan took several seconds to regain her train of thought and she gestured vaguely towards the back of the room as she tried to find it again. It was probably a bad sign that they were only seven days into the semester and she'd already given up on trying to control John Bender. Something in John rose up, the thing which always got him in more trouble than he strictly needed to be in, and he found his mouth opening with what would surely not sound anywhere near as clever once it was out in the open.

'I hope I didn't miss anything important, Mrs Dunstan,' he said, just as she opened her mouth to begin her lecture again. Yep, nothing clever or witty about that statement, but he saw a wave of irritation sweep over her and a few of the keener students in the front row, which gave him some validation. He wasn't invisible just yet.

Semi-satisfied, he turned towards the empty seat in the back row of the room. The fact nobody else had attempted to claim this prime spot for people watching in his absence spoke volumes about his reputation at the school; it was as though it was accepted that John Bender sat on the back row where all participation in the lesson could be kept on his terms. From here, he could survey everybody else in the class, every interaction, every passed note and raised eyebrow. He wondered if anybody at Shermer High realised just how much he knew about them.

Now he settled back into his seat, deciding a pen wouldn't be needed on this occasion. Mrs Dunstan's historical lectures were Shermer legend, especially this particular Boer War spiel. It was common knowledge that the Boer War never appeared on the mid-term, although the amount of people frantically scribbling around him suggested that it wasn't such common knowledge as he'd always thought. With a small smirk, he reflected that, sometimes, it really wasn't what you knew, but who you knew that got you through. Where these kids had got through high school by taking copious notes and completing assigned reading well before the lesson, he'd survived by trading information for smokes with last year's cohort. So far, it was working well for him.

Having decided the subject matter was a bust, he allowed his attention to wander. Despite his personal rules, he briefly dwelled upon the fight his parents had had last night. It was strange how disconnected it felt to the whole situation. Long ago, he may have taken his mom's side, as his father had launched accusations and threats like missiles. He knew it was probably what any upstanding guy would do: defend their mom from the attacks that John Bender Senior was more than capable of dishing out. For John Bender Junior, however, any desire to protect his mom had vanished longer ago than he could really remember, because surely, any real mother would think it was her duty to protect her only child from the sort punishments which came his way with alarming regularity?

Picking over his family's failings wasn't going to help though, and so he forced himself to think about something different, like the blonde who sat in front of him. She had one of those names which was also a place, Paris or London or Arizona, or something equally as strange. He'd feel worse about not knowing her name if it wasn't for the fact that she never spoke. He'd spent last semester looking at the back of her head in math and he was pretty certain he hadn't heard her speak once beyond confirming her attendance. You couldn't really expect to be remembered if you never did anything memorable. Yet remember her he had, much to his own surprise. It was the hair, he reasoned now, as he took in the mass of brassy curls. There was a confidence about it, a sort of two-fingered gesture to the grey walls of Shermer High that was at complete odds with the girl herself. It made him smile as not many things did these days, and for that reason, he was sort of grateful she was sat in front of him again this semester.

Mrs Dunstan broke off momentarily to turn to the blackboard and write down what she considered some key facts. People shifted in their seats now they were out from underneath her gaze. They took the opportunity to exchange rolled eyes and mouth comments at each other. One uptight girl in the second row followed up her death glare with a physical reprimand for her neighbour who had been drumming on the desk for the past ten minutes. John winced as the ruler made contact with denim.

A hand slapped down on his desk and vanished again just as quickly, leaving behind a small folded piece of paper. People didn't ordinarily involve John in their note-passing. Surprised, he glanced sideways at the boy who sat next to him, a nondescript skater-type who merely shrugged and gestured along the row.

He opened the note slowly, unconsciously aware that this might not happen again. There was something almost exciting about it which embarrassed him; this was not how John Bender was supposed to behave. In some ways, the message itself was a disappointment: _Hey stranger._

Then he leaned forward around Skater Boy, and saw her.

Nancy Kennedy's eyes were fixed ahead of her, as though she was really interested in what Mrs Dunstan was writing on the board. Like the best of the back row, though, her desk was empty and whatever she'd used to scrawl her note to John (he suspected some form of eyeliner) was now long gone. In the harsh light of the classroom, he was struck again by how young she looked and how pretty she was, but also how her huge dark eyes were so sad. He didn't remember that from that night in the summer.

The sadness vanished as she stole a look at him along the row and to be honest, he pushed that thought to one side. Because she looked hot too and, after the morning he'd had, hot was a big thing. When she gave him a lazy smile, he felt the corners of his own mouth turning up. He wasn't used to this.

For one moment, he allowed himself a small fantasy. It was a very small one, because anything else was beyond him; he'd seen from experience that wishing for much beyond his own existence was just asking for trouble. His very small fantasy involved arriving to a party, even just one of Diego's small gatherings, with a girl like Nancy Kennedy. Not meeting her there or stumbling across her in the smoky gloom: actually arriving with her as a real date.

Being sentimental wasn't his thing though, and as the bell rang for the end of the period, he stood up. Making his escape was easy; he travelled light and was out of the door before most people had even opened up their bag to receive the pens, pencils and folders that they'd littered their desk with. A different guy would have returned the greeting, hung around and made small talk with Nancy. He wasn't that guy, and so he left without another word.


	3. Friday, September 16th 1983

**A bit of a character building chapter. This story is a bit like that... there will eventually be drama and stuff rather than simply John's teen-angst musings.**

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_Friday, September 16__th__ 1983_

Another Friday night, another party at Diego's. John didn't know how this had happened again. He'd skipped last week's gathering (a good thing in retrospect as apparently there'd been some altercation with the cops gone midnight when the neighbours complained) and he wouldn't have said his alternative plans had been all that much worse in comparison. He'd still got drunk and smoked far more than was good for him, albeit in a different location. What had driven him back here tonight was less desire and more the certainty that something would take his mind off of the week he'd just had. The last thing he wanted was to limp back home before his parents had shouted themselves out. He'd made that mistake one too many times already this week.

Within an hour of arriving, though, he'd found himself aimlessly wandering through the house, picking up and dropping conversations with frightening regularity. He wasn't sure what had happened to him. Time was, he was able to while away hours at these parties, talking about nothing with anybody who happened to be there. Beer and tobacco and pot helped to loosen everybody's tongues. The people hadn't changed; the revolving door of Diego's house brought new faces as ever, but some familiar faces too. Some people John loosely interpreted as friends, much in the same way he deemed Diego a friend, yet he was finding even their company trying. It wasn't their fault, and so he displaced his usual angry frustrations by moving from room to room and hoping that sooner or later he'd find something to calm his restlessness, because narcotics just weren't working for him this evening.

There'd been a talk at school this week about college. It was the sort of event that John usually avoided if at all possible, or at least sat with his cronies and scoffed at. In fact, that was exactly what he did do, contorting his face into ever more disgusted expressions and rolling his eyes more than once at the imperatives the principal and vice-principal had used. It had earned him his first Saturday detention of the year tomorrow; Mr 'Dickwad' Vernon had caught him in one of his more dramatic reactions and found him to be 'lacking in basic respect and manners which I'll drill into you as nobody else will.' On one level, the vice-principal could be seen as generous. John wasn't working on that level.

Underneath the scorn and derision, however, some of what had been said in that talk had affected John more than he would ever be able to admit. At one point, he'd glanced around the room, looking beyond his immediate circle of like-minded burnouts, and what he'd seen had unsettled him. All around him were dozens of seniors, jocks and cheerleaders and nerds and musicians, people he'd walked the hallways with for years. For so long, he'd mocked them and their cliques, seeing himself as something separate, something unique, something different from the mindlessness he saw in all of them. Now he wondered if he'd done all of that because deep down he'd known. Here they were, listening to the same talk, and they were nodding, agreeing, taking notes. This wasn't just some talk to them: this was their future. It had hit him hard.

College had never been on his agenda. He was so done with school, only having stayed on out of a sick need to prove everybody around him wrong. The thought of four more years in education had been enough for him to block the mere consideration of college out. There was nothing college could teach him that he wouldn't be able to learn quicker and more effectively in life. But suddenly he realised what college could do: it could get him out of here. All of the people around him, in their lettermans and turtlenecks, they were making plans to leave this place, this city, to move far away from what had made them who they were at Shermer High. They were getting exactly what John wanted: they were getting out.

There were other ways of doing that of course, but now it was all John could think about. He'd left that talk in a crushing depression, suddenly jealous of everybody around him for whom that last hour hadn't been a complete waste of time. Gazing out across the parking lot at the cars bought for the princes and princesses of the school, he had an urge to do something drastic, smash their windows, puncture their tyres. Life was unfair, he'd always known that: he had the bruises and burns to prove it. But he'd never imagined it was so unfair. These people had everything and they were going to get more. John had rarely felt his poverty so acutely.

Now, drinking from a bottle as he let the lame jokes of his friends wash over him, he allowed himself to entertain the idea of telling his parents he wanted to go to college. He imagined it wouldn't be the most painful experience of his life. His father's laughter was something that wasn't heard very often in the Bender household. A story like that would keep Mr Bender amused for a long time. As for his mother, she'd no doubt fire off some witticisms at his expense and bring it up periodically in order to highlight how useless he was. Not for the first time, John felt weary at the predictability of his life.

So he felt he could be excused from feeling particularly sociable this evening. Less drunk than he'd wanted to be, he walked out onto the back porch of the house and fumbled for his cigarettes.

'You got any I could bum?'

He looked up to the source of the question. He didn't really need to; that voice was uncomfortably seared into his memory. Still, the sight of Nancy Kennedy in the light spilling out through the windows did something to raise his spirits. The temperature gradually dropping had forced her out of the shorts but the dress she'd poured herself into left little to the imagination either. With the red lipstick, she added a level of glamour to the whole evening.

He handed one over silently and lit it. She didn't break eye contact as she took a long drag off of it and exhaled slowly. John wasn't sure how to explain it, but she seemed to smile without moving her mouth. It was something to do with her eyes or her skin or something else about her. It was pretty attractive.

'So… history with Mrs Dunstan.' Those dark eyes sparkled mischievously.

'What about it?'

She shrugged carelessly. 'I just didn't have you down as a history kind of guy.'

It was flirtatious banter, nothing more, and yet John found himself actually curious. 'No?' That she'd even given him much thought at all was both alarming and interesting. For his part, he'd not only consigned their night in the summer to the past but locked the door securely behind it, not even a snapshot to commemorate it. Girls tended not to be so clinical though, and ordinarily that sort of bothered him. Not today though.

'No.' She shook her head, that strange not-quite-smile on her face again.

He couldn't resist. 'What kind of guy did you have me down as?'

That shrug again. 'I don't know.' She took another drag on her cigarette, seemingly enjoying making him wait for her response. He surprised himself in doing just that. 'You just seem like the sort of guy who doesn't enjoy looking backwards much.'

'Nancy!' An arm suddenly snaked its way around her neck, shattering the moment for John. Its owner was one of the many nameless interchangeable faces who inhabited the place. 'Where did you get to?'

Nancy flashed that secret smile at John again before fixing a more obvious one on her face and turning towards the limpet around her neck. 'I've been right here.'

'Well come on inside.' The guy smashed his face up against her so that even John felt uncomfortable. 'You need to warm up.' The last was said in a heavily innuendo laden voice, probably intended to be a whisper but coming out in a drunken bellow.

Nancy gave a false giggle alongside the guy's smutty chuckle, took a final drag of the cigarette and ground it out. Just before she gave in to his demands, she glanced up at John from underneath her eyelashes. 'I'll see you around, John.'

For a few moments, he was left alone on the back porch, burning cigarette left unsmoked, half-empty bottle of beer in his hand. It was as though he didn't quite know what to do in the wake of Nancy's departure. It wasn't a feeling he much enjoyed.

He wasn't left alone long.

'So you've met Nancy.' The statement came from Diego who sauntered over, joint in hand and a broad smile on his face. 'Oh Johnny boy.'

John didn't recover quite quickly enough, even as he tried to appear nonchalant as he said, 'What do you mean?'

Diego's grin widened. 'You know what I mean. Exactly how many times have you two "met"?' He didn't wait for an answer before saying again, 'Oh Johnny boy.'

John regained some of his usual equilibrium as he knocked the ash off of his cigarette and smoked it in several successive drags. 'She's a cool chick. You know.'

'I know.' Diego nodded solemnly before laughing. 'Oh man!'

John somehow couldn't help agreeing.


	4. Friday, October 28th 1983

**This is astonishingly short for me - I'm normally so verbose.**

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_Friday, October 28__th__ 1983_

If you didn't count history class (and John really didn't – nearly two months in and he'd yet to complete a single assignment or paper and Mrs Dunstan hadn't even _commented_), then it was six weeks between sightings of Nancy Kennedy. When he did see her again, he was in the rare position of spotting her before she spotted him, and he found himself staring at her unseen for rather longer than was healthy. Certainly, it was long enough for it not to go unnoticed.

'Are you listening to me?' The blonde in front of him suddenly broke into his thoughts, more due to the fact that she'd stopped fiddling with the buttons on his shirt than because her voice had changed at all. She rolled her eyes when he jerked back to look at her. 'You could at least _pretend_.'

John said nothing. It wasn't something he was especially known for at school, but outside the confines of that establishment, he usually found remaining silent was the safest thing to do. He had no idea what the blonde had been talking about anyway; she was the reason he'd been looking around the room in the first place. Nancy being in his direct eye line was pure coincidence. Looked at logically, it was actually the blonde's fault he wasn't listening, but he knew just enough about women to realise she wouldn't see it like that.

'Oh forget it.' The girl rolled her eyes again, picked up her handbag from where she'd all but dumped it on the floor when she'd bumped into John, and left him standing alone. He might have been disappointed by her sudden departure: her Halloween costume consisted mainly of lingerie, and whilst her conversation blowed, he had high hopes for what else she could do with that mouth. Now there was Nancy, though, and that tempered just about everything.

He allowed himself a couple more minutes unseen observing. All around him were girls in various states of undress. His blonde was one of the more extreme versions of whichever animal she believed she was channelling, but most of Diego's 'friends' this evening seemed to have had some sort of allergic reaction to clothing. John wasn't exactly complaining, just observing, and what he saw in Nancy was somebody who actually looked _good_ in what she was wearing. In honesty, it wasn't much different from what she'd worn the last time he saw her here: a clingy low-cut dress which only just about prevented her being arrested for indecent exposure. Her sole nod towards the holiday was a pair of cat ears that were almost lost in her mass of dark curls. Yet she looked right in a way that the other girls, including the blonde (maybe _especially_ the blonde), just didn't.

John eventually had to stop looking though, only partially because he felt too uncomfortable with what he was doing. In truth, he felt the need to speak to her because the look on her face wasn't one he was much enjoying. Despite the costume, sitting by herself didn't do much for Nancy, and unless something changed quickly, he was pretty sure the thoughts running through his mind would seem entirely inappropriate. Besides, it was quite a novelty to be the one initiating the conversation.

'So what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?'

She looked startled and it was clear it took her several seconds to place his voice and face. For a moment, he wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake by crossing the smoky room and leaning up against the wall as she sat on the stairs. The way she was looking at him was not the way he wanted to be looked at.

Then, slowly, like she'd remembered who she was and what she was doing there, a smile spread across her face, blood finally flowing back into her cheeks. 'Who said I was a nice girl?' she purred, effortlessly getting to her feet, her every move only making her costume more apt.

John couldn't help smiling back as she linked her fingers through his and turned to lead him up the stairs.

* * *

Nancy had more than regained her usual equilibrium by the time they'd both readjusted their clothing. The smirk on her lips made John run his hand over his own, wondering how much of the lipstick she was reapplying had transferred itself to his mouth.

'What?' he asked eventually when the smirk turned into a full-scale grin. 'What's so funny?'

'Nothing.' But still she smiled. Then she said, 'Come here,' and before he could stop her, she'd wiped at a spot just below his mouth. 'There. All gone.' She held his gaze for a long time before she said, 'So what happened to the blonde?'

Bemused, John gave a small laugh. 'Which blonde?'

'There's more than one?'

'Always.'

Nancy turned away from him, her eyes dancing as she laughed. 'You wish. You got a thing for blondes?'

John shrugged. 'I don't know.' He didn't. He'd never considered himself especially fussy when it came to girls and there was no particular pattern to his knowledge. Nancy, for instance, was far from blonde. Okay, so there might have been a slightly higher proportion of blondes to brunettes. As for redheads, he'd never come across one who he liked enough to bother. He reasoned he probably just had a thing for girls and left it at that.

For the longest moment, she stared him down, and a flash of that desolation he'd seen cross her face appeared again. Then she turned away. 'I'm gonna get a drink.'

John nodded. 'Yeah.' He didn't follow her.


	5. Monday, October 31st 1983

**I was really pleased with how this chapter turned out. A couple of cameos from people you already know and love/loathe - both from The Breakfast Club and from my parallel story Because of You.**

* * *

_Monday, 31__st__ October 1984_

'Cool costume, Bender.'

John looked up from where he'd been intently studying the tarmac of the back parking lot and sought the source of the sarcastic comment. As a general rule, not many people at Shermer High spoke to him, and certainly not in such light-hearted tones. Even those people who he loosely referred to as his friends tended to suss out the situation before diving straight in with a killer put-down, which this comment was no doubt intended to be: John was wearing his standard-issue plaid shirt and denim jacket combo. He didn't do Halloween.

All of which meant that the comment could only ever have come from one person, and, sure enough, there he was, his pride at what he considered an extremely witty joke painted all over his face.

John gave the obligatory high-pitched girly scream and then mimed shock before saying between exaggerated breaths, 'Oh Dom, it's only you. I thought it was some horrible mask.'

Dom beamed delightedly at being included. 'Fuck you, man. Got any smokes?'

It was a funny thing, John mused as he handed a cigarette over: he never baulked at lending Dom a smoke. 'Lending' was a tenuous term anyway, as the sophomore never returned the favour. John had his suspicions that he was kept on a reasonably tight leash at home and any evidence of cigarettes would be treated as some heinous crime. Even so, he wasn't usually so generous with his stash. Only with Dom.

He watched the boy light the cigarette and take a long drag, wondering if he was faking the dramatic exhalation. If he really was starved of tobacco at home, you'd think he'd find weekends much harder and not be quite so chirpy on a Monday morning.

'So how was your weekend?'

John shrugged and smoked his own cigarette in response. His input wasn't really needed, he knew.

'The 'rents had this totally shit party, full of complete whackos.' Dom proceeded to give John a blow-by-blow account of said-party, suggesting that it hadn't been quite as shit as he'd originally painted it. This was a standard Monday morning conversation with the sophomore and, by now, John had learnt how to tune him out.

Even he had to admit that this friendship (or whatever) with Dom was an odd one. It wasn't as though his social circle didn't span the ages and sexes. Dom's age in itself wasn't a barrier to his being admitted into their clique. More surprising was exactly the monologue he was delivering right now. Dom's parents were the sort who gave a shit about their children, involving them in weekend activities like museum trips and dinner parties with their friends. Not many of John's friends had that kind of life, and he both pitied and despised the boy for it. Ordinarily he'd have cut someone like Dom down with a few not even especially well-thought-out comments and then ignored him until he grew bored and found another group to tag along with, one more suited to his lifestyle.

In contrast, John not only tolerated Dom, but had recently found himself almost enjoying his company. He talked utter rubbish, of course, and, despite his claims to the contrary, was so innocent it wasn't funny. He was clumsy and idiotic and fake. He was also the closest thing John had ever imagined to a little brother, and he quite liked having him around.

All good things in small doses though, and John was sort of glad when the bell rang for homeroom. Being early was something unusual for him, but when your parents were beginning the day with a healthy slanging match, getting out the way was a pretty wise move. The downside was that he'd already smoked half his day's packet, plus Mrs McKenzie would miss him today. He felt a little bad about that; he expected his excuses for being late were at least more inventive than most people's. Dom, for example, would probably crack under the pressure and blame traffic.

The corridor was filled with students collecting books from their lockers and snatching last minute pieces of gossip to tide them over until lunch-time. It was a small perk of being John Bender which meant people tended to move out of your way when you walked to homeroom, something Dom took full advantage of. _Friend, surrogate brother, lapdog, _John thought, a little unkindly, and so he turned to at least acknowledge the sophomore's departure.

He lost focus as he caught sight of her at her locker, dark hair bundled up into a scruffy ponytail, her clothes unusually shapeless and baggy. It was surprising that he even recognised her, looking as she did: surprising and little alarming. He'd once bumped into a recent hook-up at a party and tried to crack onto her again before he realised, all because she was wearing a different top. Girls' faces didn't tend to lodge well in his consciousness, yet he recognised Nancy from the way she placed her head on one side as she considered the books in her locker.

Abruptly, her reverie was brought to an end, and John watched as a trio of girls with voluminous hair and perfect nails swept down the corridor, jostling her on the way past. Nancy dropped the book in her hand and in the next second, the girl at the front of the pack had tripped over it. She barely stumbled and yet her scream suggested she'd been mortally wounded.

'Oh my God! Watch what you're doing, skank!' The girls turned as one: a blonde, a brunette and a red-head. The Three Bitches of the Apocalypse, John thought wryly, even before the blonde spoke again. 'Wow. Like, you know it's totally okay to wear a mask on Halloween, right? Cause it would probably be an improvement. What do you think, Claire?'

John barely heard what the red-head said; he was too busy looking at Nancy whose face, he could now see, was scrubbed clean of any of the layers of make-up which the dim lighting at Diego's made look semi-natural. She was paler without it, her skin more prone to tiny imperfections and her eyes naked without the dark liner and mascara which he'd somehow considered a very integral part of her. And God, she looked young now, like some scared little kid in the face of the devil.

And then suddenly he was moving and his mouth was opening and words were coming out without any direction from his brain.

'Nancy, you okay?'

All four girls turned to look at him, united in that one small moment. Nancy's bare face flushed red with a dozen emotions at once, whilst the Bitches showed varying degrees of derision, amusement and hesitation. That was one of the things about girls enmasse: it somehow made them unafraid of someone like John Bender.

'Oh look, girls. It's her knight in shining armour.' The blonde smirked. 'Or, you know… the stable-boy.'

'Why don't you just fuck off?' John growled, engaging in the situation in a way he never had before. Girls' spats weren't his scene; he'd never even attempted to break up a cat fight before, and he'd seen his fair share of them in the past. Christ, he'd caused a few in the past, even if he wasn't entirely sure why. He didn't usually like breaking his own rules: he had so few it seemed only right to uphold them. But this wasn't so much a fight as an assassination attempt; it would be like letting somebody kick a dog, and John was strongly opposed to animal cruelty.

This blonde was a bitch he wouldn't mind seeing get a kicking though. She raised her perfect eyebrows, her lips never changing from the slightly amused disdain. 'Not very knightly behaviour. We were just going anyway. Come on girls.'

And away they swept, royalty in their own very small palace.

'Shit.' He exhaled as he watched them go. 'You okay?'

When he turned to look behind him, Nancy had gone.


	6. Saturday, November 5th 1983

They hadn't even got to the party yet and John was already regretting extending the open invitation as far as Dom. The sophomore hadn't stopped talking since he'd met him fifteen minutes ago and didn't show much signs of letting up as they approached Diego's door. If he wasn't careful, Dom was about to ruin any street cred John had ever had.

Time for some damage limitation.

'Dom.' He broke into the sophomore's monologue. To his surprise, Dom stopped speaking immediately; if he'd known it would be that easy to shut him up he'd have done it a while ago. Still, no harm done. Now Dom was looking at him eagerly, much like a puppy when its master held a ball. John tried not to mind the adoration too much.

'When we get to the party,' he continued now. 'Maybe… chill, yeah?'

There was a slight pause before Dom responded. 'Oh, sure, yeah. Course. I'll be real laid back, promise.'

And then he descended into his extended commentary on every mortal thing which had happened that day. John pulled out his cigarettes and let his mind drift, wondering what the evening at Diego's might hold for him. His appearances there had become more regular recently; he hadn't missed a weekend there since September, he realised, with more than a little alarm. It was becoming like a routine, something he'd always actively rebelled against. He couldn't remember the last time he'd so much as followed a class schedule fully for one week, so to find his weekends suddenly tied up in some kind of timetable was disconcerting. A little too late, he thought he should probably visit somewhere else this evening, but even he wasn't quite enough of a dick to drop Dom off and then leave him. He had a little more respect for the boy than that.

So, it seemed, did everybody else. John didn't know why he was surprised when Dom was welcomed into the conversations with open arms. He'd always found the crowd at Diego's to be accepting. God, they'd allowed him into their inner circle; Dom was a breeze in comparison. And Dom was a likeable kid, if a little too keen. Thinking about it now, John wasn't sure why he hadn't brought him along before: people liked Dom. Maybe that was precisely the reason why he'd left him behind. John didn't really need much more competition.

That was how he found himself in the kitchen, surrounded by people he barely knew, come midnight. He could hear laughter from the living room, imagined it was Dom's joke they were finding so hilarious, and reached for another beer.

'You gonna leave any for anybody else this time?' His hand froze over the bottle of beer as the frighteningly familiar voice blocked out the revelry around him. When he turned, Nancy Kennedy was facing him with a playfully raised eyebrow. 'Or are we gonna have to share again?'

She was dressed like the Nancy he'd come to expect over the past couple of months, all tight dresses and artfully messy hair. The difference between the girl in front of him now and the one he'd left by her locker days before was so great that he wouldn't have been able to imagine it. The most striking thing was the confidence and bravado present in the gloss of her lipstick and the swing of her hips; the Nancy of four days earlier had been doing everything she could to fade into the walls. Now she seemed to be positively revelling in the way every eye in the room was unable to glance away from her for more than a few seconds. If he was ever in any doubt that she knew exactly what she was doing, that was gone now.

'I reckon I can stretch to two,' he said, handing her a second bottle as he snapped his open on the kitchen counter.

'So generous.' Nancy took a long gulp before resuming her satisfied smirk. 'A little bird told me you brought a friend along tonight.'

'Yeah, Diego's got a big mouth.'

She didn't deny that his guess was accurate. 'You should probably look happier about it.'

He knew she was right, yet somehow had a suspicion that if anybody at this party would understand his feelings tonight, it would probably be Nancy. Like him, she'd learnt how to make this place her own, becoming whoever and whatever she wanted to be. Somehow bringing Dom here was bringing a little too much of the John Bender he was the other six days of the week along with him. It was almost as bad as bringing his dad along for the ride. The very thought of that brought an involuntary smile to his lips.

'That's better,' Nancy said, sounding gratified and not a little pleased with herself. 'You know, you look kind of nice when you smile.'

'Only kind of?'

She smiled up through her eyelashes, every inch the temptress, and John knew he didn't have the energy to resist. Here was somebody who was choosing him over the eminently more charming Dom. He'd never stood a chance.

* * *

Alcohol and pot and sex loosened everybody's tongues in this place. John had often come away from Diego's with a person's life story neatly packaged up, but no sense of their name. It was a place of shadows and confessions and secrets, all perfectly anonymised. It was a place where anything could be asked and answered, and so, sitting on Diego's back porch, he asked what had been on the tip of his tongue since the last time he'd seen her.

'Where did you go?' Nancy gave him a justifiably quizzical look, forcing him to add, 'On Monday.'

The light from the kitchen illuminated her face as she gave an answer which sounded too easy to be completely true. 'I was late for homeroom.'

It would never have crossed John's mind as a response; homeroom was basically optional in his book. Maybe it was different for other people, but he'd never put Nancy quite into that category. Any time he'd glanced across at her in history (which, he grudgingly admitted only to himself, was more often than he was really comfortable with) she was painting her nails, or cutting her split ends off, or checking her lipstick in her compact mirror – anything other than taking meaningful notes. She wasn't a homeroom fanatic.

Trying a different approach, he said, 'Those bitches don't like you.'

'They hate me.' The honest pain of it was evident in her voice, even as she tried to disguise it with a bitterly amused snort.

He took a drag on his cigarette as he processed it. 'What did you do to them?'

'Nothing. Everything.' As though it was the most obvious thing in the world, she said, 'Girls like them don't like girls like me.'

'Why's that?'

'Cause I'll do things they won't.' She fixed him with an unwavering stare, her eyes full of implication. 'And it freaks them out.'

He met her gaze for a long moment, cigarettes burning down in their hands. There was a challenge in her words, as though she wanted somebody to disagree with her. But how could he when she was so on the money? It was that, more than the credit cards and the clothes, the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces, which marked her out as being different from the three princesses. It had never really entered his mind before that it was wrong to think like that: it was just the way things were. He supposed he'd never really spoken to a girl like Nancy before.

The moment ended and he knocked the ash onto the floor.

'You want another beer?'


	7. Tuesday, December 20th 1983

**This is a really short chapter, but I'm a believer in chapters being the length they need to be. Another BC cameo here.**

* * *

_Tuesday, December 20__th__ 1983_

Chicago was experiencing the coldest month on record. They were set for a freezing Christmas and New Year with experts advising nobody travel unless completely necessary. Some kindergartens had closed early for the holidays. O'Hare Airport was intending to stay open throughout the festive season, but passengers were advised to stay aware of the situation.

So claimed the radio in shop class, before Lionel Ritchie urged them all to ignore weather and party hard. That was what John took away from the song anyway, even if the very thought of Lionel partying hard was laughable.

It was cold, that much he'd admit. So cold that he'd taken to keeping his gloves and coat on in almost all lessons, something none of the teachers seemed to have even noticed. Even the shop teacher, the aptly named Mr Wood, had turned a blind eye to his students' increasing layers; most of the work involving machinery had ended a few weeks ago, and if they didn't mind getting paint on their clothes, he wasn't going to argue. There was absolutely no point rocking the boat this close to the holidays.

The festive spirit was infecting everybody. John was already tiring of the endless squeals and giggles from girls as they exchanged presents long before the last day of school. These transactions smacked very much of wanting to ensure the recipient returned the favour with an equally if not more expensive gift. It was exhausting, in his opinion, and just gave him another reason to be grateful not to be female.

For his part, Christmas was something to be viewed warily, like a tempting tidbit for a wild animal. The shiny baubles and sugar-coated songs were attractive, but he knew from past experience that they could conceal a world of problems in the Bender household. Things could change in the blink of an eye and everything became a trap. John didn't intend to get caught again.

It was at times like these that he perhaps felt the most detached from his peers. All around him was the barely contained excitement that school was almost out for the holidays. Shop tended to attract more guys than girls, so he was at least spared the hysterics, but the sense of anticipation was almost tangible in the air. He knew how odd it made him that he was almost disappointed school was closing down. He wondered if his life was the actual definition of being caught between a rock and a hard place.

An altercation at the front of the room caught his attention. Mr Wood, usually so laid back that it was hard to remember he was a teacher, seemed to be having an argument with a student. What was even more surprising was the student was arguing back. He wasn't somebody John had seen before, or if he had, he hadn't noticed him. He was small and slight, looking far younger than the other students in the class, with a dark-blond bouffant of hair. He didn't look much like somebody who usually argued with teachers.

'Brian, _as I have already said,_ this is really not the time…'

'But Sir, could you just look at-'

'Brian.' Mr Wood spoke firmly and loudly, a thousand miles away from his usual self. 'Not now.'

For a moment, it seemed that 'Brian' (John wondered what his parents had been thinking) was going to continue arguing, and then his shoulders slumped down as he turned away. Whatever he'd been fighting for, he'd clearly lost. John wondered what on earth a boy like that could have to argue with a teacher for: he probably hadn't had his lighter confiscated or been given detention for some wild infraction of the rules. All John could imagine was that 'Brian' had failed shop and it was dragging down his precious grade point average; he looked like the sort of person who would care about that, which was dumb, because who failed shop? It was basically the only thing John was really passing, and he wasn't convinced that was because he had some God-given talent for the subject. More likely it was because Mr Wood had low standards, which meant that 'Brian' couldn't possibly have failed, because he was a teacher's wet dream with his tucked in shirt and natty knitted jumper. He couldn't fail if he tried.

It didn't explain why, as 'Brian' left the room, John saw a look pass over the boy's face which he found worryingly familiar.


	8. Friday, December 23rd 1983

**Longer update. I like this chapter. Mainly because of the reindeer. I must, however, add that my knowledge of what those in the US army can do is almost entirely based upon the information given in Pretty Little Liars.**

* * *

'Hey Johnny! You can't drink my beer without a costume!' Diego whipped the bottle out of his hand so fast that John wondered whether he funded these parties through a clever system of pickpocketing. 'I'll trade you for tinsel.'

John took in the plethora of festive items offered towards him. 'You're kidding, right?'

'It's Christmas!' Diego's eyes had a horribly mischievous glint to them. 'No exceptions, Johnny boy.'

John looked at the tinsel and the hats and the novelty badges. Diego had really gone to town on this holiday season; he'd missed Thanksgiving, but rumour had it that there had been real live turkeys in the backyard. The house now resembled a multi-coloured brothel of flashing lights and the smell of marijuana was almost blocked out by the festive frankincense candles. John couldn't help thinking that, if he'd been Mary, the wise men could have kept their freaking gifts to themselves; it smelt revolting.

He was just beginning to think that Diego's lameass beer was not worth the embarrassment of a mistletoe hat, when she did it again, taking him completely unawares.

'Give him the hat.' Nancy slipped into the kitchen, her usual black dress swapped for a vibrant scarlet one. On most girls it would have been too much, especially coupled with her trademark red lipstick, but somehow it worked on Nancy.

She reached into the box in Diego's hands and pulled out a black Santa hat. Around the fluffy white headband, emblazoned in gold writing, were the words 'Merry Fucking Christmas'. John had to admit it was a pretty good match for him.

Even so…

'Hold up,' he protested, as they both turned towards him. 'She's not wearing a costume!' The colour might have changed, but that was about the only nod towards the Yuletide season. It certainly wasn't the kind of outfit John could ever have imagined the elves and pixies who helped Santa out wearing; if it was, Santa would be stupid to give up even one night with them.

'It's red,' Nancy said, lifting her eyebrows in a way which showed she knew exactly what was running through his mind right then. If it wasn't so blindingly obvious, John might have been impressed.

'And Nancy's decorative enough already,' Diego concluded, still holding back the bottle of beer. 'So… hat or no?'

It crossed John's mind to push past the two of them and leave the house. This party would be just like every other party at Diego's, so it wasn't as though he'd miss out. He could get his own beer from any number of places which saw ID more as a guideline rather than a rule, decent beer, and he could drink it all whilst wearing his own clothes. He didn't need their stupid games.

Nancy put her head on one side, a teasing smirk on her red lips.

John tore the hat out of her hands with a muttered, 'Fuck's sake', ramming into onto his head so roughly that it fell over one of his eyes. 'Happy?'

Nancy straightened it out. 'Ecstatic,' she purred.

'One beer.' Diego handed him the bottle back. 'Suits you, Johnny boy.' With a nod, he'd gone, no doubt to peddle his thrift store junk elsewhere.

'Dick,' John muttered, before trying to pull the hat off again.

'Hey!' Nancy caught his arm and prevented him from doing so. 'He's right. It suits you.'

'Cause I'm really that grumpy?'

She shrugged, which sort of surprised him. He knew he wasn't exactly Kris Kringle but he wasn't aware his dislike of holidays came across quite so obviously. Had his other feelings been communicated so clearly without his even knowing it? The thought was rather sobering.

Keen to change the subject, he said, 'You've changed your dress.'

'I do have more than one.' Her eyes sparkled teasingly.

'You look nice.'

'Thanks.' She took a swig of his bottle of beer. Then, with a giggle, she took his hand. 'Come on.' When he hesitated momentarily, wondering how quickly this had escalated, she laughed again. 'Come on. It's a party. I'm not spending the whole night in the kitchen.'

That had been exactly John's intention, but maybe she had a better idea. He didn't think it would do any harm to give it a try anyway.

* * *

By midnight, the party was dying. The house hadn't been as full as it had been in recent weeks, likely a result of the impending holiday, and those who had been here had already slunk home or upstairs or to another shadowy corner of the house to see in the festive season in whichever way they chose.

Which left John and Nancy sitting on the floor, sharing the tail end of a joint, Nancy cradled within his legs. They were alone, or as good as; John was pretty certain the other mounds in the dim light from the television were either asleep or had their attention focused on something other than them. Nobody had said anything for the past fifteen minutes. The only sound was the shopping channel somebody had flicked to over an hour earlier, the presenters too engaged and perky to be stomached at full volume and therefore turned right down, a faint buzzing as the background to the silence in the room. It was the quietest John could remember one of Diego's parties being for a long time.

It was also the warmest he'd felt in weeks.

Wordlessly, Nancy offered the joint up to him. He took a long drag on it, wondering where exactly Diego got this stuff, and when exactly he'd become so immune to it. Perhaps more pertinently, he wondered when _Nancy_, with her slight figure, had become immune to it. By rights, she should be coughing her lungs up right about now, not to mention the vast quantity of beer she'd consumed. Where did a girl learn to do things like that? He knew he'd built up some of his immunity by chasing oblivion. Not for the first time, he wondered what Nancy was running from.

'So you doing anything for Christmas?'

He spluttered as he exhaled, surprised by the question which seemed so ordinary-girl.

Nancy seemed to know that and gave a wheezing laugh of her own. 'Sorry. Lame.'

John took a swig of beer to try and cover up his discomfort. It wasn't as though his relationship with his parents was exactly a secret. He didn't see any need to lie about it; most people here had issues of some kind. Likely many of them had a worse time in life than he did, trapped by things they had no way of escaping. He was just biding his time before he moved out and never set foot through that door again. It wasn't forever. And considering the things he and Nancy had done, the ways they'd come to know each other, saying he was in no way looking forward to the next few days and the sham family he was part of was hardly baring his soul.

'What about you?' He kept his voice deliberately level as he flipped the question back towards her. It was cowardly, but it wasn't until he'd said it that he realised he was actually curious. All this time, and he wasn't even sure what Nancy Kennedy did outside of school and these four walls.

There was a long pause. John glanced at the television, his eye drawn towards a novelty reindeer ornament whose nose lit up. It was a bargain, apparently, only ten dollars and free shipping when you bought two – 'a perfect Christmas present!' John thought it would be simpler to tell the recipient you hated them and save yourself the money.

'My stepdad's coming home.'

Another long pause followed. The presenter urged them to BUY NOW before the reindeer all ran away to the weird homes that would want them. John almost felt sorry for them suddenly, wondering what sort of people would buy a novelty ornament only days before Christmas. They needed protecting from people like that. He imagined a world where the ornaments all got to live as a herd, their noses flashing away together so they'd never be alone. Then he decided he'd had quite enough pot for one evening.

'Is that good?' he ventured now, trying to take his mind off of abandoned reindeer. No reply came, as Nancy lifted the joint to her mouth again and took a long drag which she chased down with a swig of beer. 'Where's he been?'

It seemed a safer question. 'Fort Hood. It's a military base in Texas.'

'He's in the army?'

'He fought in 'Nam.' There was a strange pride in her words even as she threw them out as if they were entirely ordinary. In a way, they were; John had already tired of his classmates in Dunstan's class beginning comments with the phrase 'When my uncle was in 'Nam', as though they'd been there themselves and could testify to the legitimacy of the words. Now he wondered how much it had aggravated Nancy.

'So you're an army brat?'

'He trains troops in Texas. He makes it home about once a month.'

It sounded an incredibly cushy number to John, a million miles from what he envisioned military service to be like, and he'd thought about it in quite a bit of detail from time to time.

'My mom met him when I was ten. We've never lived on base.'

John didn't know why he was asking the question again. 'So it's a good thing? Him coming home for Christmas?'

Yet another long pause, and John didn't know why he felt so uncomfortable with it. Nancy had been silent for whole hours this evening, this was no different. Vaguely, at the edges of his alcohol and marijuana hazed mind, he thought of another question he should ask.

'My mom's missed him.' Then, more quickly than John could quite comprehend, she sat up and twisted around to face him. Her face showed no signs of the beer and pot she'd consumed that evening, her eyes clearer than they should have been by rights. With a ferocity which alarmed him, she kissed him, her teeth bashing against his with the force.

Then she was pulling him to his feet, and leading him towards the door and up the stairs, and whatever questions he'd had disappeared as she tugged that dumb hat off his head with a carefully calculated giggle and shut the door behind them.


	9. Friday, January 13th 1984

_Friday, January 13__th__ 1984_

'So do you believe in it then?'

'Believe in what?'

'You know.' Nancy leaned up on one elbow, cigarette ash dangling dangerously over John's still bare chest. Her tangle of dark hair hung over one shoulder and the picture should have been one of sultry temptation. Instead, John couldn't help noticing the almost child-like sparkle in her eyes and he shifted a little uncomfortably.

'Know what?' he asked, trying to fix his usual image of Nancy in his mind. Granted, usually he was out of here by now. He wasn't entirely sure what had changed, except for the fact that winter was still biting with a vengeance and being underneath some ratty blankets in Diego's spare bedroom was preferable to wandering the streets.

Now she rolled her eyes with an alarmingly charming giggle. 'Friday the thirteenth! The unluckiest day of the year.' She took a long drag on the cigarette. 'How lucky was your day?'

It was the sort of rehearsed line he'd become used to her trotting out over the past couple of months. There was something about Nancy, he'd decided, something which struck him all over again as she looked at her now. Everything about her was so almost genuine that it was easy to overlook the first few times you met her. Then there were those strange moments when it took her a couple of seconds to catch up with her own thoughts, when something other than the sex-kitten mask she wore the rest of the time crept in. John couldn't help thinking the real Nancy was a lot more interesting than the image she projected to the world all of the time, and that thought scared him enough to make him roll away from her now.

'It's been okay,' he replied, reaching for his boxers and jeans. Truthfully, it had been. He'd known much worse days. Christmas Day, for instance, had been a real doozy. Within hours of receiving his only present, he'd been the lucky recipient of a split lip for not sharing when his old man ran out of his own smokes. In comparison with that, today had been, ironically, like a holiday.

'How about you?' he asked now, aware that there'd been a long moment of silence and feeling the need to fill it. He risked a glance over his shoulder at where Nancy still was, cigarette burning down in her hand, hair artfully arranged. But her face… God. The mask had fallen and the sadness in her eyes suddenly devastated him. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it: the colder weather had forced them to spend more time indoors in the past couple of months and it was harder to hide in the harsh strip lighting Diego favoured. Even so, the pools of misery in her face suddenly seemed darker and deeper than ever before.

And not for the first time, those words were so slow in coming.

'Yeah,' she said eventually. 'It's been….' She tailed off, the way anybody who had drunk as much beer and inhaled as much pot as she had would do. Except that wasn't her, and John knew it. There was a reason Nancy Kennedy was so popular on these gloomy evenings, beyond the evidence of the tangled sheets between them. She was reliable, somebody who wouldn't fall asleep or throw up or do any of the other things girls tended to do when they'd imbibed too much. It was like she didn't have any limits. If she was finding it difficult to speak, it was due to something more than narcotics.

John sat down again, his jeans belted up, his boots untied. This was not his style of things. Usually, he'd be long gone, out the door, out the house. Instead, he felt trapped, tied to this bed.

'Nancy?' The words somehow found their way up his throat and out into the world, sounding strange and alien. 'Is… are… you okay?'

There was a moment when her eyes met his and it seemed like she might say something. Her mouth wavered slightly, testing out the words, wondering if they'd be looked after or thrown back in her face. It was a moment which would haunt him for months and come flying back to him on another night in this very room. The moment she'd almost told him.

'I'm failing pre-calc.' The words, when they came, were harder than he'd expected. To his credit, he didn't react beyond raising his eyebrows, to which she let out a giggle, too high-pitched to be genuine. 'I know, who cares, right?'

'I didn't know you took pre-calc.' It was true. Calculus in his eyes was for nerds and that special breed of Shermer High students who actually selected classes based upon some kind of system. There was no way Nancy could be described as a nerd. 'You like math?'

She part-shrugged, part-shook her head. 'Not when I'm failing.' Suddenly self-conscious, she tucked the blankets up around herself, seeming younger than earlier. 'My report card's gonna suck.'

'Can't suck more than mine.' That was also true. Indeed, John had a sneaking suspicion he might be about to break his personal record when it came to report cards, shop not included obviously. 'If it helps, I do a mean line in forgeries.' Another truth.

She laughed, and it was honest and real and John wondered if there was anything more lovely in the world. 'I might have to take you up on that.'

He leaned back against the headboard, not looking at her, but not avoiding her either. 'Your parents care then?'

There was only the tiniest pause, one somebody less attuned to feelings about parents than John was might have missed. The smallest hesitation when she worked out the correct answer to give, then, 'Yeah. Well, you know.'

He didn't but he knew the right answers to give as well. 'Yeah.'

They stayed like that for quite a while.


	10. Thursday, January 26th 1984

**We are heading towards the Saturday detention but there are a few more chapters to go yet. It will continue after the detention and becomes much more of a companion piece of Because of You so you may wish to read that in the interim as I battle on with trying to write this, whilst also trying to finish a Rent fanfiction and having restarted a Doctor Who one which I began in 2009! Always making life easy for myself...**

* * *

_Thursday, January 26__th__ 1984_

This was probably evidence that he should start thinking about cutting back on his smoking. Sitting on the bleachers just days after the coldest day of the year so far just so he could inhale some tobacco was a pretty low point in his life, yet John wasn't quite low enough to consider going back inside just yet. Besides, it wasn't as though he was alone; there were plenty of people at Shermer High as desperate for a hit as he was.

He wasn't sure if he'd really consider them friends, but it was marginally better than being outside by himself. They were a shelter of a kind. They didn't make the weather any kinder, but they stopped him feeling as though he was on the outside of everything any more than he usually was. He was still waiting for belonging to mean much less; he hoped as he grew older it would matter less, that being himself would be less painful to bear. It wasn't that he was ready to throw his lot in with the jocks or the nerds or even the burn-outs, whatever anybody else thought about him. He didn't need a uniform. But sometimes he wondered if it would bury himself, his John-Benderness, away so that he just became one of a crowd. He knew he probably wasn't supposed to think like that.

Still, things could be worse, he decided, opting for playing that game today rather than brood on his misfortunes. He could be one of the guys running around the track below. They might be wearing their school-issue kit, advertising their allegiance to the blue and white army, but they were entirely alone as they ran laps. It was several degrees below zero; John wondered if they were actually insane. Organised sport, by its very definition, implied some level of lobotomising, at least to him, but to plough around the track seemingly voluntary on a freezing Chicago day… well, it made his nicotine reliance seem normal. At least his brief middle school swimming career had involved being indoors in the warm. To make matters worse, he vaguely recognised the guy coming round the track now as some school-hero-wrestler. Surely the whole point of wrestling was to get involved, not run away? Perhaps this was his back-up plan when things all went wrong: turn tail and run. There were worse choices a guy could make.

'You trying to get pneumonia?' His attention was abruptly called away from the jock pounding around the track as Nancy slid in beside him, entirely too close for normal day-to-day conversation in his life. She gave an exaggerated shiver which didn't really tally with her femme fatale lipstick. 'You got any more?'

Without really thinking, he handed her the carton of cigarettes. It was only Dom and Nancy who had that effect upon him. Perhaps it was another sign that he should quit: corrupting the youth wasn't something even he was particularly comfortable with. Still, he lit the cigarette as it dangled between her lips, and watched with more interest than was strictly necessary as she exhaled in one thin lingering stream of smoke.

'Do I have something on my face?'

Caught out, he hastily looked away, shrugging to hide his discomfort as he said, 'No.'

For a few seconds they smoked in silence. John sort of expected that silence to continue. He and Nancy had never really spoken in daylight before and he wondered if they'd even have anything to say without alcohol and sex to break down some barriers. Certainly he had no idea what he'd find to say. He shifted awkwardly, semi-consciously putting some space between himself and Nancy.

Nancy shifted right back, her right thigh against his left, and not in a way he was finding appealing right now. 'How's your day been?'

This was not a question he usually fielded: his parents were about as interested in how his day had been as he was in Dunstan's lectures. Resisting the urge to look at her incredulously, he replied, 'I'm not complaining.'

'You skipped history.'

She'd noticed. He wasn't sure that had ever happened before, at least not like this. Maybe if anybody ever noticed he was absent, it was more with a sigh of relief. Dunstan would have been wetting herself with pleasure, he was almost certain. Nancy said it more as though he'd let her down in some way by not suffering through something with her. He wasn't aware he'd made any sort of vow about holding her hand through the Boer War, but he had drunk a lot of beer. This was only the second time he'd conversed with her fully sober.

There wasn't enough alcohol in the world for him to have revealed why he'd been late this morning though. Mrs McKenzie had been unimpressed with his claim to have been delayed helping an old lady cross the road, instead simply writing down that he'd overslept. That was preferable to the truth anyway: being late because he'd had to visit the doctor to get some antibiotics for the infected cigar burn on his arm was nothing to be proud of. It was still throbbing away now beneath his many layers, but it was nothing compared to last night when he'd have gnawed his own arm off if it would have relieved the pain. His hard-won cash from the minor mechanics he'd completed on friends' cars had pretty much all gone on the consultation and antibiotics, but it was preferable to claiming off of his parents' insurance. Going back to square one was a small price to pay.

Then suddenly Nancy was pushing a notebook into his hands. Frowning, he took it before he could really register that he'd never once seen her pick her pen up in the whole time he'd known her. If he was somebody who needed empirical evidence to believe things, he'd have assumed she couldn't write.

'You can borrow my notes.'

They were neat and thorough, with dotted I's and crossed T's and perfectly indented paragraphs. They detailed the causes of the Boer War alongside the major battle dates within the conflict. She'd highlighted key words and notable people. They were perfect notes.

But, 'You don't take notes.'

She shrugged casually, as if changing the habits of a lifetime (or at least a semester) was nothing. 'I thought you might need some.' She stood up. 'You can keep the notebook. I'll catch you later.'

John watched her go with a certain alarm in the pit of his stomach which momentarily blocked out the pain in his arm. She was still the Nancy Kennedy he'd met last summer when she walked away from him, hips swinging, legs encased in startlingly tight jeans. Even the jocks who were sauntering off of the track were unable to prevent a slight double-take as she went past. She was every guy's dream.

But then there was this notebook. There was the way she'd sat beside him, the way she laughed even when he didn't say anything especially funny. There was the look that came into her eyes sometimes, which looked like screaming. This was a million miles away from the girl he'd met on that balmy summer night.

And that terrified him.


	11. Friday, February 17th 1984

**I make it about 3 more chapters before the detention and this story collides with Because of You. **

* * *

_Friday, February 17__th__ 1984_

Diego's new-found love for commercialised holidays seemed to have stalled after Christmas, something John was eternally grateful for. In a week which had been saturated with neon hearts and vomit-inducing verse, he was more than satisfied with the shit beer his friend continued to peddle. It was non-branded, but it wasn't pink; that could only be a good thing.

The party this evening was surprisingly busy, filled with people like himself, who had no interest in Valentine's dances taking place all over the city this evening. Shermer High was hosting its own fundraiser for prom. John had never attended a high school event and he didn't intend to start now. The mere thought of the frills and pastel silks triggered his gag reflex. The very fact that he knew he'd never be welcome at such an event was something he chose to ignore.

Valentine's Day was bullshit anyway. Nothing could be further from romance than the hearts and flowers which had smothered the malls for the past few weeks. Hell, even his dad had produced an ostentatious bunch for his mom on Tuesday, and they didn't even _like_ each other. Valentine's Day was the biggest commercial racket going, and John was pleased not to be taking any part of it.

Aside from the love crap, the week had been uneventful. He'd made it into school almost on time, sat in his classes with the minimum of fuss (except a mild explosion in chemistry – figuratively speaking) and then gone home again. Home had even been relatively quiet, his mother pacified enough by the gas station bouquet to overlook her husband's absences the rest of the week. Conversely, John greeted the empty spaces his father usually occupied with a warm welcome. The burn on his arm had healed over and was scabbing over in a way he'd have found fascinating as an eight-year-old boy. Even now, the urge to pick the scab was hard to resist. It had been a Good Week, as far as weeks went in his world. He should appreciate it more.

Instead, he was bored. All around him people were laughing, and he managed to muster up a few anecdotes and quips which kept people entertained enough to keep him included in their jokes. Nobody could ever accuse John Bender of not being a worthy piece of entertainment; he'd cultivated the role of class clown ever since he could remember. Now it was sort of like second nature to him, all of which didn't really help him with his boredom. There was nothing new here, no challenge, nothing to move him forwards. He didn't know if it was the beer or this seemingly interminable winter, but he couldn't remember ever feeling quite so _stuck_ before.

There was a college fair at school next week. There was one every year about this time, mainly aimed at the juniors, but there hadn't been a lesson that had gone by this week when the teacher hadn't put in a last minute plug for it: 'Remember, it's never too late!' That was patently untrue as far as John could see, but he sort of admired the inspirational sentiment in it. At least, he would have done if the teachers' eyes hadn't always flickered to meet his, just for one second, and he hadn't been able to read the unspoken addition to the statement: _well, for most of you_. That was less admirable.

He knew he really only had himself to blame for all of this. Yeah, his parents sucked, but plenty of people's parents sucked. He'd read the statistics and done the math and he knew that every day he was surrounded by people whose home life was less than ideal. That in itself was no excuse for his half-assed report cards. He had to take some responsibility for his persistence tardiness, his inability to complete homework on time, if at all, his propensity to answer back when he knew what was about to come out of his mouth wasn't even that funny. Anyway, the joke was on him now. Graduation was in four months' time and he had no idea what was next. Way to go, John Bender.

Diego did okay. It had never been made clear to John what it was Diego actually did in order to afford the shit beer and the tacky decorations. Hell, the house itself was an asset that seemed completely at odds with the stoner guy John had known for the best part of two years. He'd drifted here as part of a crowd of people, much as he'd tugged Dom along in his wake. Diego had been introduced as simply that, 'Diego', and it had been universally accepted. He laughed and joked and provided chemical respite from the real world outside of his door, but John wasn't sure he'd even ever been told the host's second name. It seemed a petty thing to even consider now, yet if Diego came into the room, John wasn't sure he'd be able to refrain from asking him every question which haunted him when he allowed himself to dwell on them. How do you do this? Who do you talk to? What do you do all day? How much do you get paid? How did you get the job? _What do I do now?_

Clutching his bottle of beer, he headed back towards the living room, already imagining the first tote he was going to take. It was definitely a beer-and-pot kind of evening.

'I'm guessing that's for me.' The bottle was plucked out of his fingers and when he looked from it to her smile, he found his muscles relaxing in a way which was both welcome and incredibly disturbing.

Initially lost for words, he finally managed to conjure up a cliché ridden, 'You're a sight for sore eyes.' She really was, though. If anything could have dragged his mind away from the car wreck of his life, it was Nancy in this particularly form-fitting green dress. She looked like she'd been poured into it. 'Green?'

'You'd have preferred red?' she asked innocently before giving him a wicked grin. Then, deliberately, like she'd studied it in some Seduction 101 class, she leaned towards him and said in a whisper, 'You should see what I've got on underneath.'

John gave his brain some time off as he leaned down to cover her teasing smile.

* * *

It was late. Later than John usually stayed, and later than he'd intended to stay this evening. He wasn't sure what had happened really. One minute he'd been following Nancy upstairs, the next they were curled up together, her hand firmly encased in his, listening to some seemingly endless story from one of Diego's even more stoned friends. Nancy was sparkling and giggling and laughing, and all the time she was squeezing his hand almost painfully tightly, as though she never intended to let go. It was making John go alternately hot and cold. He took another swig of beer and swallowed down the guilt which was lingering vaguely in the corners of his mind.

Bottle finished, he unknotted himself from around her, shaking it as an explanation for why he was making a bolt for the door. The light in her eyes flickered ever so slightly, as though she knew there was more to it than an alcohol deficiency. He guessed she really wasn't dumb. He wasn't massively surprised when he realised she'd followed him to the kitchen.

'Y'okay?' she asked, her voice ever so slightly higher pitched than usual. There was a quiver and he fought against actually looking at her because he couldn't bear to see the desperation on her face.

'Yeah.' God, he sounded like his father when he was like this. He took a swig of beer to try to counteract it. Leaning back against the counter, he ventured, 'You?'

'Yeah, 'course.' She nodded. 'You… doing anything this weekend?'

Alarm bells rang, and John shrugged. 'You know. You?'

She half-shrugged, half shook her head before saying, 'My step-dad's home.'

'For the weekend?'

'A week.'

He nodded, as if he had any clue what that was like. 'That's nice, right?'

There was a long pause.

'Yeah. I guess.'

He nodded again, and then roused himself. 'I should be getting home.'

'Oh. Yeah. Sure.' Like she'd flicked a switch, she grinned, but it seemed so forced, and he knew he was being a dick. He wasn't sure exactly how or why, but he didn't think that massively mattered: there weren't many excuses for being a dick. 'I'll… see you around, yeah?'

He had a sudden flashback to the first time he'd met her, the way she'd sauntered off when he'd been a dick that time. _I'll see you around_. How did one word make so much difference to how it sounded? Back then, Nancy had been enigmatic and amazing, strolling away without so much as a pout. Now… God, she sounded desperate, and he hated himself for thinking that. If he was a decent guy, he'd stop right now, reassure her, or at least let her down properly.

Dropping his eyes to the floor, he said, 'Yeah, sure,' before leaving the house.


End file.
